The merger of EPS and OPS faction in the Tamil Nadu’s political equations was a major relief for the people as all were long waiting for AIADMK to unite and work as one party.
The dispute between the ruling AIADMK after the demise of former Chief Minister J Jayalalitha had finally ended with both the EPS and OPS section merging to be one on 21 Aug. Everyone celebrated the occasion across the state making it to the beginning of the golden period in Tamil Nadu’s political history.
Former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Panneerselvam and the current Chief Minister E. Palaniswamy together announced the merger chanting the slogan of ‘one mother, one party and one family’. However, this merger is being considered as the beginning of another major change in the political equation in the state.
Soon after the announcement of the merger, TT Dhinakaran, nephew of Sasikala was side lined by the party as the OPS faction’s first demand for the merger was the expulsion of Sasikala and her family members from the party. After Dhianakaran was being deliberately ignored by the party, he took on his own path to pull down Chief Minister Palaniswamy along with the new Deputy Chief Minister Panneerselvam and again bringing the party under fishy water.
19 Legislators from AIADMK rebelled against the party to support Dhinakaran, resulting in giving a jolt to the party. The 19 MLAs belonging to the TTV Dhinakaran camp submitted letters to the governor on 22 Aug stating that they have no confidence in the chief minister, Edappadi K Palaniswami and demanded a floor test immediately. However, the Governor very tactfully responding to this demand scheduled the floor test to be held after two weeks, giving enough time to AIADMK to lure back a few legislators to win the test.
Following 19 MLAs from AIADMK joining the Dhinakaran camp, they were shifted to a secure luxury resort in Pondicherry out of the reach of AIADMK. Recently during a meeting convened by both the factions of AIADMK on 28 Aug to discuss further actions to be taken regarding the expulsion of Sasikala and her nephew, the party was even more shocked to see that 27 more MLAs including the already 19 rebel MLAs had skipped the meeting.
To clear the floor test the ruling AIADMK requires 117 seats. The combined strength of both the factions of AIADMK is 134, out of which 19 MLAs have rebelled against the party, supporting the Dhinakaran camp. Now with 19 legislators out and 27 more likely to rebel, the party will have to face a tough time to prove its majority to win the floor test.
As per the recent developments leaders of opposition parties including the DMK, Congress, CPI and CPI-M met President Ram Nath Kovind on Thursday and demanded an immediate floor test in the Tamil Nadu assembly. The DMK and other opposition parties in Tamil Nadu on Wednesday accused Governor Vidyasagar Rao of deliberately delaying the floor test and adopting a partial behavior favoring AIADMK by giving them enough time to win back few of the rebel MLAs to win the test.